


Keeping Portland Weird (and Safe)

by desert_neon (sproutgirl)



Series: Looking In From the Outside [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton & The Cellist - Freeform, F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, POV Outsider, Phil Coulson & The Cellist - Freeform, avengers to the rescue, how to be friends with an Avenger and NOT keep it a secret, secret friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8553607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sproutgirl/pseuds/desert_neon
Summary: Charlie knows he's kind of an ass, but that doesn't mean Kelly Cooper (Slaski? Cooper-Slaski? Charlie doesn't know and he doesn't much care) isn't a know-it-all and a show-off. It's a very annoying trait, especially when masked men are holding you hostage.Also, Captain Arnold Woods of the Portland PD did not sign up for this shit.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lapillus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapillus/gifts).



> When this series was first conceived, it was totally canon compliant. But that was during the first half of season 1 of Agents of SHIELD, and of course everything’s been blown to hell by now. So consider this canon-divergent from Captain America: The Winter Soldier on. It takes place in a world where Hydra existed but were taken out without the total destruction of SHIELD. SHIELD was able to rebuild, with Hill at the helm, with new policies in place about transparency and public info.
> 
> For lapillus, who gave me _ideas_.

Grumbling to himself as he flipped through his files and navigated the busy lobby, Charlie only narrowly managed to avoid bumping into a patron. “Sorry,” he offered over his shoulder, already hurrying along.

Man, he hated working in an actual bank branch. He much preferred the quieter, less public loan offices, but the setting had come with the promotion, which had been a necessary step in his inevitable rise to Regional Director. But that also depended on _not_ mowing down customers, so Charlie stopped looking at his files and started to look where he was going, which was good, because he stopped just short of running into someone else. 

A very familiar someone else. A someone else who had very thoroughly and humiliatingly kicked his ass in self-defense class just two days ago.

“Charlie?”

“Hey. Kelly. Sorry.” He shifted the folders in his hands, saving two from falling out the middle. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Kelly Cooper’s—or whatever her last name was now—eyes fell to the files, then snapped back up, a hint of wariness creeping into her gaze. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Started last month. Here, anyway. Been with the company for years. What are you doing here?” Okay, that probably could have come out a little nicer. It was no secret they didn’t like each other—he thought she was a show-off, and she probably thought him arrogant—but he should still be professional. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’m just surprised. I thought you and Jason banked at Chase.”

“We do. But we, uh, have a little more money after the wedding than we thought we would, and, well.” She gave a little shrug. “We have an appointment with Rachel Slade to talk mortgage possibilities.”

“Oh, she’s good,” Charlie said, and he made a mental note to review the applications filed at the end of the day. “You’ll like her.”

She seemed to relax at that, and offered Charlie a tentative smile. “Thanks. I hope she likes us. Jason running late isn’t exactly the best first impression.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it. Rachel’s been slammed this morning. She’s bound to keep you waiting herself. I’d say Jason’s bought himself a good fifteen minutes there.”

“Oh,” she replied, brightening. “Thanks, that’s good to—” Her eyes went wide and she reached out to tug at his arm.

He started to turn, to see what had caught her attention, when the unmistakable sound of bullets punctured the air and he froze.

“Everyone on the ground!”

All around them, people were dropping down, and Charlie finished his spin to see several gunmen just inside the doors, ski masks on and automatic rifles in hand.

“On the ground!” the first gunman repeated, his gun poised to shoot again. “Now!”

Charlie got down. 

One gunman chained the doors shut while two others started blocking the windows with heavy cloth, and a few others fanned out to check the back offices and cubicles. “Cellphones, bags, and wallets slid over here,” the first guy continued, gesturing to the now unpopulated center island.

Charlie immediately rocked to free his cellphone from his pocket, then slid it and his wallet as directed.

“Didn’t you hear me, lady?” First snarled and, when he started to stalk in Charlie’s direction, Charlie looked up with a sinking feeling.

Kelly was still standing, obviously scared but holding her ground. “Of course. You’re a little hard to miss.”

Charlie watched in horror as First advanced, his rifle aimed directly at Kelly. “For God’s sake, Kelly,” he hissed. “Get down!”

She didn’t acknowledge him, her eyes never wavering from First, who stopped just outside her reach. “Then why aren’t you on the ground?” he growled, his hands tightening around his gun.

Why the _fuck_ was she not getting down? What the hell did she think she was doing? Yeah, she kicked ass in class, but this was hardly the same thing. “Kelly,” Charlie implored, and he slowly snuck a hand out and tugged on her pant leg as the other gunmen returned, every employee accounted for and shepherded at gunpoint.

She continued to ignore him, choosing instead to answer First. “You didn’t say please.”

Even with the mask, First’s sneer was obvious. “Please.”

Finally, _finally_ , Kelly slowly sank to her knees. She let the strap of her bag fall from her shoulder and, still not breaking eye contact with First, she tossed it towards the counter.

“Cellphone,” First snapped.

Kelly hesitated, then sighed, and then slowly reached for her back pocket. She pulled out a StarkPhone and held it up in a classic “hands up” pose, her thumb holding down the power button for several seconds longer than necessary. “There,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone as she put the phone down and slid it to join the pile. “Powered down and everything.”

Charlie breathed in relief as she lowered herself fully to the ground.

“All right,” First said, and he backed up as two of the others came forward, zip-ties at the ready. “This is going to take a while, but it’s pretty simple, people. Just stay still and keep quiet, and you’ll all make it out alive.”

Incredibly, Kelly’s mouth opened, even as one of the guys pulled her hands behind her back.

“Please,” First added, mocking, and Kelly closed her mouth and _smiled_.

 

_________

 

“Captain Woods? Sir, there’s a spectator insisting he speak with you. Says he can help.”

Arnold turned towards his new lieutenant. “I’m a little busy, Browning.”

“I understand, sir, but he’s making quite a nuisance of himself. Won’t stop until he talks to ‘the person in charge.’”

“Handle it, Lieutenant. Escort him away, arrest him, whatever. Just han—” 

“Captain Woods.” The annoyance himself appeared, and Arnold suddenly understood just how much aggravation his people had been facing. 

“Slaski. What the hell are you doing?” He respected Slaski, usually, as a social worker. He knew the guy always looked out for his charges, but he could be a damn menace when the law (and its officers) didn’t live up to his expectations.

“I know people who can help. Who want to help.”

“Slaski, every cop you know is probably already here, plus SWAT. There’s nothing—”

“Not cops,” he interrupted, then held out his phone, silently desperate. “Please, take it. He’s an agent—”

“I’ve already got a goddamn FBI prick sticking his nose in. I don’t need another one.” Arnold started to turn away, but Slaski grabbed his arm, and he turned back, displeased. “Let. Go.”

“Woods.” If anything, Slaski’s grip tightened. “ _Please_. My wife’s in there.”

Arnold felt his shoulders loosen in sympathy, but he pried the man’s hand free. “All the more reason to stay out of it. Let us do our job, Jason.”

“It’s been two hours.”

“And it’s going to be a couple more. But no one’s been harmed, there’s a hostage negotiator on site, and Portland’s finest SWAT team. We got it covered, so get your ass back across the barricade.” 

Slaski pulled back, angry and stricken, but he nodded and turned away, lifting the phone to his ear. “You get all that?” he asked as he marched away.

“Go with him,” Arnold instructed Browning. “Make sure he stays behind the line.”

Browning nodded and headed off, and Arnold headed back to the tactical truck. “Anything?”

The hostage negotiator shook his head. “They still won’t pick up.”

“Goddammit. Do we have any idea what they want?”

“We honestly don’t know,” Agent Padillo answered. “Locking themselves in with the hostages was obviously the plan from the start, so it’s not a quick cash grab.”

“Yes, thank you,” Arnold said, barely refraining from tacking “Agent Obvious” on at the end.

“I only say that to reiterate that they’re buying time,” Padillo snipped back. “Whatever they’re after is probably in the vault, or the safe deposit boxes. Either they need time to get to it, or they’re attempting to wear down the hostages until one of the employees cracks.”

“Or they’re just the distraction,” a new voice said, and everyone turned to the communications station, where Lt. Kolcheck was staring at the unit’s speaker in surprise.

“Sir, this is a secure channel,” Kolcheck began, but the voice didn’t let him finish.

“Oh, I know, but it really wasn’t that hard to crack.”

“Like you did any of the work!” another man’s voice called from the background and the first man huffed.

“Allow me to rephrase: my tech expert assures me that it was distressingly simple to gain access to your secure line, but, then, there isn’t much that can slow him down.”

“That’s better!”

“Agent Padillo, Captain Woods, I am Agent Phil Coulson, of SHIELD.”

Padillo snorted disbelievingly, and Arnold was inclined to agree. “Listen, _Agent_ ,” Padillo said, “I don’t know how you tapped in, but there’s no way I’m taking the word of a disembodied voice over the radio.”

“I understand,” the ersatz agent said, his calm voice sounding for only a moment before a click of the line indicated dead air once again.

“Sir!”

Everyone turned as one to Moreno, who was monitoring the screens, despite the fact that the feeds had been cut well over an hour ago. One screen, however, was now showing life, in the form of a bland, middle-aged man with receding brown hair.

“As I was saying,” the man said, then held up a badge and ID. “I’m Agent Phil Coulson, of SHIELD. My team and I are about fifteen minutes out and would like to offer our assistance.”

Padillo leaned in, sharp. “Appreciated, Agent Coulson, but I assure you it’s not necessary. The FBI has things well in hand.”

“Do you? Are you aware, for example, that there is a cyber attack happening right now on the city’s servers? Or that the head of Portland General Electric has gone missing?”

“We’ve had no reports—” Padillo began.

“Of course you haven’t. This was a very methodical, well planned attack that shouldn’t have been noticed until it was over. Unfortunately for them, they did one thing wrong.”

“And what was that, Agent Coulson?” Arnold asked before Padillo could, knowing his tone would be better than FBI agent’s snide one.

Coulson smiled and the camera swung around, revealing six people grouped together in what looked like the inside of a military jet, all with grim determination on their very, very recognizable faces. Tony Stark lifted a gauntlet-covered hand in an insouciant wave, and Hawkeye, standing by the empty pilot’s seat, crossed his arms and glared.

“They caught the attention of the Avengers.”

 

_________

 

“If I could just get loose,” Charlie said again, pulling at the bindings on his wrists and ankles. It was futile and he knew it. He’d known it for two hours.

“Charlie, stop,” Kelly said on a sigh. “You’re not going to get free.”

“But if I—”

“ _If_ you did, then what? You’d rush them?”

“Maybe,” he replied, petulant. The truth was, he didn’t know. He didn’t have to.

“Please. We both know that’s nothing but posturing, and it’s getting annoying.”

“’Getting?’” the woman on Kelly’s other side muttered, and Charlie shot her a glare.

“Anyway,” Kelly continued, “There’s a time and place. You rush them now, you’ll only get yourself killed and maybe take one of us right along with you. You’re always too impatient. You have to bide your time, wait for an opening.”

“Says the woman who’s been antagonizing them from minute one,” he groused.

“Hey, that ‘antagonizing’ got everyone sitting upright and together, didn’t it? And just watch me finagle a bathroom break in the next hour or so.”

“It also put all the attention on you,” Charlie told her, letting the “dumbass” be silent but heavily implied.

“I think that was kind of the point,” the woman next to Kelly said, and Charlie certainly heard _her_ quietly muttered, and not quite silent, “dumbass.”

“Thank you, Rosa,” Kelly said with a smile, and, okay, looking back, Charlie could admit that everything she’d said to the gunmen had either netted the hostages something, or had taken the focus off someone else.

“Whatever,” he scoffed. She always fucking thought she knew everything.

“Look,” Kelly said, lowering her voice even more. “Just be patient, all right? We should be out of here soon.”

Charlie set his jaw and looked away. There was no way she could possibly know that.

 

_________

 

“Captain? He’s here.”

Arnold turned with a nod of thanks to Browning, and extended his hand. “Agent Coulson. Thank you for your assistance. What can you tell us?”

Coulson shook his hand firmly, but didn’t offer a handshake to Padillo, who stood stiffly beside Arnold, radiating indignation. “I have two team members on their way to retrieve the head of PGE, one stopping the attack on the servers, and one heading into the bank.”

“The bank?” Arnold asked, concerned. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“Planting surveillance only. Don’t worry, he’s very good at getting in and out without being seen, and we need to know what’s going on inside. Right now they’re in a holding pattern, but we’ve managed to disrupt their communications and at some point they’re going to notice that things aren’t going according to plan.”

“Coulson?” a quiet voice sounded in Arnold’s ear, and he and Padillo—and all the cops in the area—startled.

“We’ve looped you in,” Coulson said with a twitch of his lips. “Audio only, for better coordination.” Then, after a tiny pause, “Talk to me, Barton.”

“Target sighted, alive and kicking.”

“Literally?” Coulson asked, and he seemed amused.

“Figuratively,” came the answer. “And verbally. Placing camera one now.”

“Copy that. Stark? How are you faring?”

“Killed the nasty viruses, worms, and Trojan horses,” said a very famous voice. “Tracing their origin. Should have something for you soon.”

“Thank you. Please activate the surveillance system in two minutes.”

“Ten-four, good buddy.”

“Captain?” Coulson said, and Arnold straightened, ready to be called into action, but another voice answered.

“Widow has eyes on. There appear to be only five hostiles on site. We should be back to you, with cargo, in less than twenty.”

“Thank you, Captain. Happy hunting. Doctor?”

“I’m here with Jason,” was the answer, given by a raspy, melodious voice, and Arnold frowned, a suspicion starting to form in his mind. “He’s fine. Worried, but fine. We’re staying out of your way, but call me in if the situation changes and it’s safe to bring in the Big Guy.”

Arnold gave in to his need to look outside and, sure enough, Dr. Bruce Banner was standing next to Slaski. He suddenly saw a fuck-ton of domestic cases in his future—he was never going to have the upper hand with the guy again.

“Will do,” Coulson said, and the line fell silent.

Arnold shifted his feet, at a bit of a loss. Everything seemed to be well in hand. “Now what?” he asked, and ignored Padillo bristling at his side.

“Now, we wait.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Monitors flickered to life, showing the interior of the bank from several angles. The hostages all seemed to be alive and well, sitting with their backs against the front of the teller counter, their hands and feet bound. “No audio?” Arnold asked.

“They’re jamming. We can circumvent it for video, but the audio is a no go. Barton, what’s your position?”

“Right behind you, sir.” 

Arnold turned when Coulson did, doing his best not to gape at the sight of Hawkeye standing in the mouth of the tac truck, bow in his hand and quiver on his back. Coulson merely gave a nod. “Good job with the cameras. How’s it looking in there?”

“Quiet, actually. The baddies are clearly just biding their time until they get the all clear. They haven’t realized they can’t touch base with their other teams.”

“Their escape?”

“I don’t think they have one. I don’t know if whatever they were planning would have taken care of it, or if they’re martyrs or what. But there are no secret tunnels, no room for a chopper on the roof. They don’t seem all that concerned, honestly.”

“And while that’s good, it can’t last,” Arnold said. “Sooner or later they’ll realize the plan failed, and then they have a room full of hostages to bargain with.”

“Agreed,” Coulson said mildly, ignoring the glare of annoyance Hawkeye shot at Arnold. “But if we can hold steady for the twenty minutes it will take for Widow and Captain America to return, they won’t get the chance to threaten anyone.”

“Aw, sir,” Hawkeye whined as, on the monitors, two of the gunmen huddled together over their phones. “Why’d you jinx it?”

 

_________

 

“Okay, this looks bad,” Kelly muttered, and Charlie looked over to see her watching First and Second hiss at each other while frantically checking their phones.

“What do you think they’re doing?”

“Well, I don’t know, Charlie, but I’d guess something went wrong somewhere. Which means things might change for us in here.” She sighed. “Just when I was really starting to consider that bathroom break.”

“Probably not the best idea now.”

Kelly snorted indelicately and said, “You think?”

Which was totally unfair; he’d been _agreeing_ with her, but before he could point that out, First and Second rounded, guns aimed at the hostage group as a whole. The others quickly snapped to attention, bringing their own guns to bear, and Charlie’s throat went dry.

“Who’s in charge?” First demanded. “Who knows the ins and outs of this place?”

No one spoke. Second swung her gun just a touch higher and fired into the granite above them. “You were asked a question. Answer.”

Everyone looked at everyone else, but Charlie’s eyes instinctively found Kathy. Unfortunately for Kathy, so did all the other employees’, making the answer clear. All the guns turned to train on her, and First loomed over her, dangerous and intent. “What do you have in this bank,” he asked, his finger on the trigger, “that the Avengers would come to protect?”

“What?” Kathy stammered, her eyes wide with fright and shock, and Charlie knew he mirrored the expression. “I— I don’t know. Nothing. I’ve never— We’re just a normal bank.”

“Bullshit,” First growled, and he looked to one of his henchmen and jerked his head towards her.

“No, I swear,” Kathy pleaded, as the second gunman approached. “If there’s something here, I don’t know what it is! I don’t know!”

“Hey!” Kelly’s sudden, harsh call made Charlie jump. “Leave her alone! She doesn’t know.”

“Kelly,” Charlie hissed, far too late. First had already redirected his focus.

“No?” he asked, coming to kneel in front of Kelly. “Someone knows, though. Is it you, my little troublemaker? Do you know what it is that the Avengers have come to protect?”

Charlie scoffed (internally, of course; no need to draw attention to himself), because of course she didn’t know. She was just trying to distract them again, like she’d done earlier. But he couldn’t stop watching, either, and he would have laughed when her eyes hardened in a very familiar way if the situation wasn’t so severely serious and she wasn’t about to get herself shot for her cocky mouth.

“It’s not a what,” she replied, staring First down. “It’s a who.” Then, incredibly, one side of her mouth crept up in a dangerous grin. “They’re here for me.”

Charlie’s mind raced and his heart hammered as a sudden flurry of motion had her up on her feet and stumbling as First dragged her to the center of the room, his rifle traded for a smaller, more manageable handgun.

“Watch it,” she complained as she tried to find her footing. “We’ve been tied up for hours. Circulation is kind of an issue, you know? And balance. Hard to walk on dead legs with no arms for counterbalance.”

First was unmoved and simply pulled harder, and Kelly went down with a yelp. First growled a little and nodded at Second, who took out the knife she’d used earlier to free Kelly ankles, and cut the ties around her wrists too.

Kelly hissed as her arms fell forward. “I hate that feeling,” she grumbled, but she didn’t have time to recover as First reacquired his grip on her arm and hauled her back up.

“We’re going to stand right here,” he told her, “and you’re going to call your friends out there and tell them that they’re going to let us go.”

“Or?” she challenged.

“There is no ‘or,’” he answered, and one of the gunmen tossed him Kelly’s abandoned cellphone. “For you or for them. Call.”

Kelly turned the phone on and made the call.

 

_________

 

With no audio, Arnold didn’t understand at all what he was seeing on the monitors. The gunmen had zeroed in on one woman, then switched to another, and had hauled her up and tossed her a phone. He didn’t know who she was supposed to call, but it surely wasn’t the SWAT team (half of whom had left to deal with the hacker element of the threat, address obtained by Tony Stark) or the hostage negotiator, because they’d use the bank’s phones for that.

The sound of a StarkPhone ring filled the trailer, and Coulson pulled his phone out, completely unsurprised. “Hello, Kelly,” he said, calm as you please, while putting his phone on speaker and setting it down on the table.

“Hello, Phil,” replied a female voice. “You didn’t tell me you were coming to Portland.” The words were simple and light, but there were definite undercurrents of fear and uncertainty.

“It was unexpected,” Coulson replied. He put a finger up in Hawkeye’s direction, and Arnold looked over just in time to see Hawkeye close his mouth, looking none too happy. “A sudden need to see an old friend.”

The woman on the phone laughed shakily. “I guess Stark’s panic button came in handy after all, huh? So, hey, I’ve got some people here with me, Phil, and they have a request. They want me to tell you that you’re going to let them go.”

“I think we all know that’s not going to happen.”

There was movement on the monitors as the gunman grabbed her and pulled her to him, an arm around her throat and a gun to her head. “He doesn’t like that answer, Phil,” Kelly replied, her voice still somehow portraying lightness.

“So I gather.” Coulson used two fingers to gesture at Hawkeye then, motioning towards the bank, and Hawkeye gave a grim nod and headed out. “Tell you what. If he lets the other hostages go, we can perhaps negotiate a deal.” Then Coulson put his phone on mute and said, “Stark, Thor.”

“Agent.”

“I am here, Coulson.”

“We can’t wait for the others. We’re going in. Get in position, but wait for the signal.”

Coulson got acknowledgments and then unmuted the phone as Kelly was saying, “They’re not going for it. Something about innocent lives and leverage. Hey, that reminds me, has Clint caught up on that yet? Last I heard he was still stuck halfway through ‘The Rashomon Job,’ which is just a shame. That episode should never be interrupted.”

Arnold goggled while Coulson hummed a little. “He finished it last month. We watched ‘The Long Way Down Job’ last night.”

“Aw, did he cry? I mean, I know he did, but did he admit it? Because— Okay, okay. Jesus. They’re getting kind of antsy over here, Phil. No hostages, they say. Their complete freedom, or they blow us all to hell. Oh, I guess there’s a bomb now? They’re setting it up, wires and stuff over in the northwest— Ack!” 

“Kelly? _Kelly?_ ”

“She is too much trouble,” a new voice said, and Arnold took his eyes off Coulson and his phone to stare at the screens. Thankfully, Kelly was still alive and upright, though also still in the gunman’s tight hold. The phone was now clearly on speaker, held by a female gunman but with Kelly’s captor speaking. “Is she SHIELD?”

“No.” Coulson’s voice went hard. “She is, as I said, an old friend. Ex-girlfriend, actually, who very much could _not_ handle the life of a SHIELD agent, even tangentially. She is not a threat to you.”

“She’s a nuisance.”

“That’s my girl.” Hawkeye’s voice rung softly in Arnold’s ear, and he briefly wondered exactly who’s girlfriend Kelly had been.

“Be that as it may, she is not a threat,” Coulson said, even as more words flooded in over the comms.

“Sir, I’m in position.”

“I as well.”

“Locked and loaded, Coulson. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Coulson muted the phone again. “Patience, Stark. Barton, you have eyes on?”

“Yes sir. And a clear shot.”

“All right then.” He put the phone back into play, listening to the demands of a now desperate criminal team. “Listen to me,” he cut in, ignoring the request for a chopper. “We are not going to give here. Do you understand?” 

Arnold opened his mouth to say something and Padillo took a step forward, because that was not at all standard operating procedure, but Coulson wasn’t done.

“Not _a fraction of an inch_.”

 

_________

 

Charlie couldn’t believe what he’d been hearing. Yes, Kelly had surprised him many times in the previous hours, but this was beyond stupid. Even Rosa had looked at him with a bewildered and concerned expression, and he had only shrugged in response.

Apparently, her ex-boyfriend was equally as nuts, because he’d just cut First off to say he wasn’t going to move.

“Not _a fraction of an inch_.”

Before Charlie could process what that might mean for the hostages, for _himself_ , Kelly snorted a laugh and dropped down to one knee, then breathed a noise Charlie was all too familiar with. First was suddenly unbalanced and tossed over her shoulder, and then Charlie lost track of things as the lights sparked and popped and died, and the west wall came down on two of the gunmen while two more (including Second) dropped dead with arrows lodged in their throats.

When the dust had settled, all their captors were dead, Thor was cutting people out of their ties, Iron Man was pulling wires out of the bomb, and Kelly was having the life hugged out of her by Hawkeye.

“What?” Charlie said as his own bonds were severed. “Ow ow ow, oh _shit_.”

“Easy, friend,” Thor said with a gentle smile. “It will pass.”

Charlie nodded and Thor moved on to Rosa, who thanked him through quiet tears. But Charlie stopped listening to them and focused instead on Kelly and _Hawkeye_.

“Fuck, babe,” Hawkeye said as he set her back on her feet. “Don’t do that to me.”

“I know, I know. It wasn’t like I had any control over it, you know.”

“Actually, you controlled things very well,” a guy in a suit said as he strode in through the hole in the side wall.

“Phil!” Kelly launched herself at the new guy, hugging him tightly. “Thank you.”

Charlie finally risked standing, hissing at the pins and needles in his legs. He bent his knees a bit, working the blood flow back to normal, and almost overbalanced when Jason came rushing in ahead of the Black Widow and Captain America.

“Looks like we missed all the action,” Captain America said, his voice wry.

“Really, Barton,” the Black Widow said to Hawkeye. “You couldn’t have saved some of the fun for us?”

“Hey, shut up, you guys had your own fun. Besides; Kelly,” Hawkeye added with a gesture towards the woman in question, who wasn’t paying them any attention as she reassured her shaking husband.

“You could have at least let me have some time with _that_ one,” the Widow replied, her toe poking at the unmoving body of First.

“Oh, hell no,” Hawkeye replied, crouching down by First’s head. “This one was all mine.” He wrapped a hand around the shaft of the arrow sticking out from the guy’s ear, and gave a vicious pull, freeing the arrowhead along with a lot of blood.

Charlie threw up.

 

_________

 

A month later, Arnold was bending over backwards to get the DA to prosecute an abusive husband with very little evidence, just to get Slaski off his back. He consoled himself, however, with the fact that the Avengers, in their handler’s own words, “owed him one.”

 

_________

 

Charlie never challenged Kelly during Master Quinzi’s class again.

 

 

—the end—

**Author's Note:**

> It's so very weird having two OCs named Charlie, in two separate series. Especially since I love the other Charlie with all my heart and this one was always conceived as a jerk.


End file.
